A look at some of the powerful images from this historic year
Diana D'Abruzzo, Foreign Policy
26 December, 2020, 02:00 pm
Last modified: 26 December, 2020, 03:21 pm
The coronavirus pandemic—the defining event of 2020—left no corner of the world untouched as it closed down countries, upset economies, and took the lives of nearly 2 million people.
A look at some of the powerful images from this historic year.
Children wear plastic bottles as makeshift masks while waiting to check in for a flight at the Beijing Capital Airport. The number of coronavirus cases at this point was more than 7,000 in mainland China. KEVIN FRAYER/GETTY IMAGES
A shopper sorts items in her cart as she stands next to bare supermarket shelves, usually stocked with toilet paper and paper towels, in Hong Kong. Panicked buyers descended on supermarkets to snap up toilet paper after claims of shortages. PHILIP FONG/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
26 February
A nurse adjusts his goggles in an intensive care unit treating coronavirus patients at a hospital in Wuhan, China. STR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
3 March
Coronavirus patients in Wuhan line up as they wait to be transferred to one of two field hospitals built in under two weeks specifically for those infected with the virus. AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
8 March
A woman gestures from aboard the coronavirus-stricken Grand Princess cruise ship as it maintains a holding pattern off the coast of San Francisco. Three days later, on March 11, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. JOSH EDELSON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
22 March
The Rev. Giuseppe Corbari, a priest in the village of Robbiano, Italy, near Milan, celebrates Mass in front of photos of his congregation attached to empty pews. The priest appealed to parishioners to send him selfies so he wouldn’t be alone when celebrating Mass. PIERO CRUCIATTI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
24 March
Gonzaga Yiga, a 49-year-old community chairman, makes an appeal to residents through a megaphone from the tallest building in Kampala, Uganda. Yiga takes his perch every morning and evening to explain how the coronavirus spreads and how to avoid it. BADRU KATUMBA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
26 March
A police officer chases street vendors in Kampala, Uganda, after the president directed the public to shelter in place for 32 days to curb the spread of the coronavirus. BADRU KATUMBA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
26 March
French opera singer Stéphane Sénéchal performs the song “O Sole Mio” from his window in Paris. PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
1 April
From a platform of the Gare d’Austerlitz train station in Paris, a medical worker looks through the window of a medicalized TGV high-speed train before its evacuation of coronavirus patients. Patients were transferred from Paris’s hospitals to those in the Brittany region of western France, where the outbreak has so far been limited. THOMAS SAMSON/POOL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
2 April
Protective masks bearing the names of medical workers are pinned to a wall at a field hospital for coronavirus patients in Cremona, Italy. MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
3 April
A temporary hospital for COVID-19 patients is set up at a convention center in Madrid. PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
3 April
Elderly women try to keep up social distancing as they wait to enroll in government social-aid programs in Ozumba, Mexico. PEDRO PARDO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
6 April
Medics intubate a patient with Covid-19 symptoms at his home in Yonkers, New York. The man, 92, was barely breathing when they arrived. JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES
10 April
Health care workers mourn their co-worker, a nurse who died of COVID-19, at Severo Ochoa Hospital in Leganes, Spain. PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
14 April
Brazilian World War II veteran Ermando Armelino Piveta, 99, is discharged from the Armed Forces Hospital in Brasilia after being treated for COVID-19. “Winning this battle was for me bigger than winning the war,” he said. EVARISTO SA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
15 April
Municipal workers in Arequipa, the second-largest city in Peru, scrub the streets surrounding a market—a sanitary measure to fight the spread of the coronavirus. DIEGO RAMOS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
16 April
A man being tested for COVID-19 reacts as a medical worker takes a swab sample in Wuhan. HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
19 April
Health care workers stand in the street in counterprotest to hundreds of people who gathered at the state Capitol in Denver to demand that stay-at-home orders be lifted. ALYSON MCCLARAN/REUTERS
24 April
Alisha Narvaez, a manager at International Funeral & Cremation Services, transports a body to the funeral home in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. JOHANNES EISELE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
29 April
A visitor talks to a resident at Les Jardins d’Astrid, an assisted-living facility in Maurage, La Louvière, Belgium. THIERRY ROGE/BELGA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
5 May
US President Donald Trump, sans mask, tours a factory that produces N95 masks in Phoenix. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
5 May
A man walks past banners depicting spectators in the stands prior to South Korea’s new baseball season opening game in Incheon. JUNG YEON-JE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
17 May
Nurses assigned to the Infectious Diseases Unit at Kenyatta University Hospital practice dance moves during a Zumba class at the hospital compound in Nairobi. TONY KARUMBA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
18 May
Stella Nyanzi, a prominent Ugandan activist and government critic, is arrested by police officers in Kampala during a protest she organized calling for more food distributions by the government to people who have been struggling amid the nationwide lockdown. SUMY SADURNI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
20 May
Patrick Hand adds crosses to the 2,000 already on the walls of Balally Parish’s Church of the Ascension of the Lord in Dublin. Each cross represents a victim of the coronavirus in Ireland and Northern Ireland. PAUL FAITH/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
21 May
A woman sunbathes in a roped-off zone on the beach in La Grande Motte, southern France, as the nation eased lockdown measures. CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
22 May
People gather inside painted circles on the grass, which encourage social distancing, at Dolores Park in San Francisco. JOSH EDELSON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
25 May
Health care workers—including one (center) holding a sign that reads “14% of healthcare workers in Madrid are infected”—protest outside the Gregorio Marañón Hospital in Madrid, calling for a reinforced health care system. PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
10 June
Following a socially distanced graduation ceremony, high school seniors and their families watch fireworks at the Bahrain International Circuit car racing track in Sakhir. MAZEN MAHDI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
14 June
A supporter of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro speaks to a soldier as she takes part in a protest against the coronavirus lockdown outside the army headquarters in Brasilia. SERGIO LIMA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
16 June
A protester is hit by a police water cannon during a demonstration in Nantes, France, as part of a nationwide day of protests to demand better working conditions for health care workers. LOIC VENANCE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
22 June
Gravediggers work at the municipal cemetery in Santa Tecla, El Salvador. YURI CORTEZ/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
8 July
A worker pastes portraits of health care workers on the facade of the Opera Bastille in Paris—an initiative to pay tribute to caregivers on the front lines of the pandemic. ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
15 July
Chilean lawmaker Pamela Jiles runs through congress wearing a pink cape and waving matching fans to celebrate passage in the lower house of a coronavirus emergency aid measure in Valparaiso, Chile. RODRIGO GARRIDO/REUTERS
4 August
A teacher wearing a biosecurity suit as a preventive measure against the spread of the virus works with a girl at a home in Cali, Colombia, as part of a local kindergarten’s teacher at home program implemented to help children keep in touch with teachers and reduce the emotional impact of isolation. LUIS ROBAYO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
28 September
Isolating students peer out of their window as they are interviewed by a television crew in Manchester, England. Around 1,700 students across two student housing blocks were told to self-quarantine for 14 days after more than 100 students tested positive for the coronavirus. CHRISTOPHER FURLONG/GETTY IMAGES
4 October
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows rubs his head as US Navy Commander Sean Conley, the White House physician, speaks to the media about Trump’s health after the president was hospitalized with Covid-19 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. ERIN SCOTT/REUTERS
5 October
Trump removes his face mask as he arrives at the White House in Washington upon his return from Walter Reed, where he underwent treatment for Covid-19. NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
16 October
Dana Clark and her 18-month-old son, Mason, wait in line at City Hall in New Orleans as early voting begins for the US presidential election. Clark said she donned the protective plastic cover because she didn’t know how many people would be wearing masks in line, and her child doesn’t have one. She also works as a teacher and wanted to take precautions for her students’ sakes. KATHLEEN FLYNN/REUTERS
11 November
A resident (left) of the Domenico Sartor nursing home in Castelfranco Veneto, near Venice, Italy, hugs her visiting daughter through a plastic barrier in a Hug Room. PIERO CRUCIATTI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
14 November
Cars line up for coronavirus testing in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. After California passed 1 million coronavirus cases, a travel advisory was issued urging a two-week quarantine for those arriving from other states or countries. ROBYN BECK/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
26 November
Dr Joseph Varon comforts a patient in the Covid-19 intensive care unit at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston on Thanksgiving. GO NAKAMURA/GETTY IMAGES
6 December
Santa chats with a visiting child through a plastic barrier in Seattle. DAVID RYDER/GETTY IMAGES
8 December
Nurse May Parsons administers the Pfizer/BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine to 90-year-old Margaret Keenan at University Hospital in Coventry, central England, making Keenan the first person to receive the vaccine in the country’s biggest immunization program. JACOB KING/POOL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
16 December
Health care workers turn a patient from their stomach onto their back in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno, Nevada. PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Disclaimer: This article first appeared on Foreign Policy, and is published by special syndication arrangement
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